The present invention relates to a process and an installation for the moulding and mechanical or semi-mechanical laying of standardised paving stones or slabs of concrete or other material.
More precisely the object of the invention concerns especially a method and an apparatus permitting the formation at industrial rates of paving stones, slabs and other elements, providing the faculty of imparting a great variety of forms to them, for each of the numberless realisable modules, without the application of complex technical means.
It is emphasised that the invention applies advantageously to interlocking paving stones or slabs equipped with protruding or re-entrant parts on at least two lateral faces of the largest inscribed rectangular parallelepiped, or to paving stones or slabs without connection, that is to say comprising no interlocking or shoulders.
The traditional process for the moulding of unconnected or interlocking paving stones or slabs consists generally of a one-piece mould and a similarly one-piece rammer. These two parts are heavy and relatively expensive.
For the manufacture of a great variety of forms of paving stones or slabs a large number of moulds and rammers is needed, and this number must also be multiplied by the various desired thicknesses, most frequently 6, 8, 10 and 12 cm.
For the manufacture of bricks, machines are known which comprise a mould comprising individually removable cores and separations, so as to permit a change of the forms and/or dimensions of the moulded bricks, while the rammer comprises removable protruding parts capable of being replaced to correspond to the form of the cavities of the mould therebeneath.
However the changes of forms and dimensions are effected empirically and necessitate a separate dismantlement of each core and separation previously positioned in the mould, and the separate installation of each new core or separation. Under these circumstances such machines can at most be suitable for the simultaneous moulding of 1 to 4 construction elements, but are absolutely not appropriate to the simultaneous moulding of a large number of elements.